Read Online The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland - Free Book Online

draw again?”
    â€œYes, and to find out what a potlatch is.”
    â€œSh.” He put his finger to his lips and looked around at the trees. “The woods can hear.” He raised his bushy eyebrows in mock fear.
    Amusing to see a rugged outdoorsman act so queerly.
    â€œWhere are the ladies you promised?”
    â€œThey’ll never come.”
    â€œPhuff? Disappeared into thin air?”
    â€œTransformed into an old English sheep dog. His name’s Billy. I just bought him. I went into a pet store for a goldfish. Came out with him.”
    â€œ Mon Dieu. He looks like a rug. Any eyes?” Claude lifted the shaggy hair on Billy’s head. “ Ah, bon. Les voilà. What? No tail? What’s he good for?”
    For filling her emptiness, she thought. “For loving,” she said.
    His mouth dropped. “What? You choose a dog instead of a man?”
    â€œDogs don’t go off in rowboats when you’re talking to them.”
    â€œI went to the sawmill to get a plank for you to come across the bog, but when I came back you were gone!”
    â€œI—I didn’t know.”
    â€œSo, now I tell you about the potlatches.”
    He drew her toward the opening of the tent, his fingers pressing her wrist. He hummed a tune as he built a fire. She gazed at the back of his creased neck.
    He laid out a blanket of pelts, burnished brown and creamy fur. “Sea otter. Almost hunted out now. Very rare.”
    Billy sniffed them. She pulled him away and tied his leash to a tree out of range. He seemed content to take a snooze. Sprawled on the ground, he did look rather rug-like. She opened her campstool to sit near the pelts.
    â€œNon, non.” He gestured, openhanded, toward the pelts. “For you. Not for anybody else. Even me.” He arranged thick, sleek beaver pelts at the opening to his tent. “The big fur trade is over, but there’s still some fine pieces if you know where to find them.” He swept his hand over the fur and invited her to do the same. She bent down at the tent opening to touch them.
    â€œOh, my! Something in me loves to feel the liveness in things like grass and moss and feathers and fur.”
    He brought out more. “Feel these. Muskrat and mink.”
    His brown eyes fixed on her as she stroked the fur. She could dig down with her fingers like roots in the mink, or just thread them through the longer filaments. The sensation melted her. He piled them at the entrance to the tent to make a backrest. She nestled herself into them.
    â€œ Ah, bon. C’est bien? Now the fire crackles. No one can hear us. Now I tell you. Potlatches. Grandes fêtes lasting days. One chief invites other villages to witness the raising of a pole. He gives away hundreds of things. Dried salmon, Hudson’s Bay blankets, basins, tools, English dishes.” He waved his arms in circles outward. “Cloth, oil, sacks of grain, sugar. Even sometimes a sewing machine or a canoe.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œTo show that he can afford to. To shame the other chiefs who did not give as much at their potlatches. Good business for me, oui? ”
    â€œWhere do they get these t00ls and English dishes?”
    â€œFrom me, of course.” He slapped his chest.
    â€œIs that all that happens at potlatches?”
    â€œNo. There are proud speeches, feasting and drinking and drumming. Feathered bodies dancing, stepping lightly on the earth. Ravens that talk like men. Men that dance like ravens. Moving in a trance.” He squinted and leaned toward her, smelling of smoke and buckskin. “Wild things happen.”
    Her imagination soared. “I’d like to see one someday. Maybe to paint it.”
    He puffed out his cheeks. “ C’est impossible. Not for white people. Or ladies. They’re against the law.”
    â€œBut you. You’ve seen them.”
    â€œBusiness, ma beauté. ”
    He leaned toward her, stroking the muskrat